M&A deals: March tally declines; "exciting year" ahead

Corporate India announced merger and acquisition deals worth USD 1.4 billion through 119 deals during March, registering a decline of 40 per cent in value terms over the corresponding period last year, says a report.
According to the assurance, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton, though the deal tally suffered a significant decline over last year, the outlook for the year looks bullish and the year 2015 is likely to be an "exciting year" in deal-making.
March deal value suffered largely due to the internal restructuring deal of GlaxoSmithKline consolidating stake in Indian arm during the month, Grant Thornton India LLP Partner Prashant Mehra said. "The volumes (number of deals) increased by over 30 per cent which is a sign of the robustness in the market," he added.

Mehra noted that "overall, we seem to be geared up for an exciting year in deal-making which hopefully will be further fuelled by the forthcoming and eagerly awaited year-end financial results which possibly will be the first public data point thus acting as the measurement of the effectiveness of the new government."
On the private equity front, there has been significant growth of 30 per cent in terms of value and 65 per cent in volume terms between March this year and March 2014.
There were 76 private equity deals worth USD 700 million in March 2015, while in the year ago period there were 46 private equity transactions worth USD 535 million.

"Besides the growth in total PE investment value, they seem to be taking small bites as the average deal value has come down from USD 11.5 million to USD 9 million and thus we are yet to see high volume of the USD 50-100 million deals," he said.
In the January-March period however, the overall deal activity stood at USD 8.2 billion by way of 350 deals as against USD 6.4 billion through 257 deals in the corresponding period last year.